Star was laying next to the sliding glass door again, when I got up in the middle of the night, because I needed a glass of water. She looked lost and hurt once more. I felt at times I was reaching to my sister, but at other times it seemed her still was at that God forsaken place she had lived with her birth family. The one’s who had hurt her in unthinkable ways, I still could not grasp all that Star had been through, all I knew was that I needed to be there for her.
“It’s going to be okay, Star your safe here.”
“I’m trying to believe that Hope, I really am, but you must understand, I am having trouble.”
“I’m sorry Star, I know your trying.”
“I was in the hospital for many months, after I was rescued, they thought the injuries were from the war, and the bomb blasts, but they were not, they were from my own families hands. I was cut, and scraped, violated, and abused. I don’t know if I will ever be able to fully trust again Hope. I want to, I just do not know if I can.”
“I am sorry Star, I wish we could have protected you then.”
“I wish I had been born to this family, not the monster of the family that I had.”
“They can’t hurt you anymore Star.”
“They hurt me every time I think about all they took from me.”
I had not believed in monsters since I was a little girl, when Mom and Dad would do everything to make sure I did not have to be afraid of those monsters, but Star had lived with monsters. They did not protect her from them. I was having trouble comprehending how Star had even survived it, other than by the Grace of a God she no longer believed in.
Lord we take so much for granted when Star lacked the most basic of things a family is supposed to offer love in support. Instead they tortured her and treated her like an animal.“Hope I do not hide behind the layers of clothing because of my beliefs, because I stopped believing long ago, but I have many scars, very many scars, and I look at them and I am back to being a little girl tortured in our little hut in Iraq.”
“I am sorry Star, I wish I knew what to say to help you more.”
“Hope you are doing fine at helping me, but some things you can not do, You can not erase the horrible memories that are forever in my head.”
Lord how can a little girl live with these memories? How can a little girl survive everything she did, and still have to be haunted by the memories, it does not feel fair.“I am still scared Star, very much scared. I do not know if that fear will ever go away. I want it to, I do not want to always be afraid.”
“I know you don’t Star, I don’t think anyone wants to live their lives in the kind of fear you have.”
“I wish no one ever has to go through what I went through, but I know it happens, it happened to me, and I am sad that other little children have to be hurt too.”
“It saddens me too Star.”
“I am sorry that I can not trust you, Mother or Father Hope, I know that you are good people, and I am happy we are a family, but I still think I don’t deserve this. I am dirty.”
“Star none of what happened was your fault. You were only a little girl.”
“I should have fought harder.”
“If you had you might not have survived.”
“Perhaps that would have been better.”
“Star we are glad you are here, we can not imagine our life without you.”
“I was burned and bruised, some of those stars you can see, I have had stuff thrown on my face, and was beaten until I could no longer move, until my Father grew tired, and then he would rest and do more. I was terrified every night I prayed that God would take me away from this, but he never did.”
“He’s gone now Star, and you are safe.”
“I still see his image when I close my eyes at night. I do not like nights, because that is when I always remember him. And there are no happy memories. He was never anything but a monster to me.”
“I don’t know how any Father can treat their daughter the way yours did.”
“I wasn’t a daughter to him, I was something to be used and thrown away.”
Lord I can not even imagine being made to feel that way. My Dad would never do anything to intentionally hurt me, and yet Star’s biological father was a monster. How can anyone treat a child this way, let alone the child’s own father.“I am sorry he did that to you, that he left you with so many scars.”
“There are one’s you can see, but the one’s that are inside my heart, the one’s you can not see hurt more than anything else.”
“Star I hope you know none of this was your fault, that you were only a little girl. You could have done nothing to ask for this. No one could, but especially not a little girl.”
“Sometimes I think I must have been a bad child.”
“Star that is not the case at all, your Father was the monster.”
~~~~
Bookmarks
Share
Print
Save
